At the present time just about every community in the nation is suffering from a crime wave and particularly from the theft of various articles which may range in size over a wide span. The present invention is founded on the belief that if means are provided for identifying the owners of particular articles without the person appropriating the article knowing that it is being so protected, and which identification can be easily discerned, these crimes of theft will be reduced appreciably.
Before this application was prepared for filing in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, a patentability search was conducted to bring to light prior art patents which come closest to the present subject. These patents are cited below and the Applicant states that they constitute the prior art of which he is aware that come closest to the subject micro-dots and method of producing and using them:
______________________________________ 3,272,533 Allen 3,772,200 Livesay 3,698,645 Coffey 3,897,284 Livesay 4,066,280 La Capria 3,861,886 Meloy 4,053,433 Lee 3,470,120 Sasai ______________________________________
Of the above-cited patents, that to Lee is believed to come closest to the present subject. In accordance with this patent individual units of production, such as articles or bulk substances, have micro-particles intimately associated therewith. These micro-particles are color-coded with a particular code being used to identify a particular owner. There are, of course, a large number of codes which may be derived from 34 different colors. In fact, the number is so great that it becomes an absolute necessity to refer to a master code in order to identify the owner of a particular set of coded micro-particles. The necessity of using such a master code has resulted in great resistance by the public to the acceptance and use of such a method of identifying articles and bulk materials.